We have seen the emergence of a new phenomenon called social media in the last decade that has changed the way we live our lives. We have all become high producers and consumers of social data.

The data we generate is not just data, though. It tells our story. It is biographical. As we enter our geo data into services such as FourSquare, update our status on Facebook and Google Plus, publish tweets, upload photos on Flickr, Instagram, publish updates on tumblr, or update health stats on services such as runkeeper, we are inadvertently narrating our own story and that of our friends and family.

However, access to social data so far has been governed by APIs, and any API with a terms-of-service is restrictive. Such an API is a control point, a chokehold on the developer's imagination, limiting his capabilities to create richer user experiences for the users of his apps.

What if we could now provide you a one-stop shop, an unrestricted, seamless, single point of access for all your social data—and you owned it all? That is the new dream that Jeremie Miller, the creator of jabber/XMPP, is dreaming and it is called Singly.

Ten years ago, when Jeremie noticed how boxed in the experience of instant messaging technologies at the time was, he created jabber on XMPP, which powers apps that over a billion people use today. Now, he wants to create a single home for all the social data that is out there on a number of heterogeneous social media services. Singly is a no-walls, no barrier access to all your social data in one place, no matter which service you created them with. It can archive all your past data, too. And there is much more to it.